With the winter months slowly creeping upon us, we are faced to endure the cold and flu season. I don't know about you, but I always hear a plethora of remedies that will help make a sick person better. I've heard: "feed a cold...eat all day..its ok to eat as much junk as you crave while you're sick...it will make you feel better", "sweat it out...get on the treadmill and make yourself sweat", "get in cold water it will reverse that fever"... Needless to say, this list can go on and on. The best thing I can tell anyone who catches a bug, cold or flu...is to listen to your body and rest.
When you are sick, your body is at it's weakest. Take this time out to listen to your body. As great as exercising is, it will just tire you out more, making you weaker. This is the time to take a well needed "time out" and focus on getting stronger. Utilize this time to take a mental health break and focus on the inner you. Clean out your mind, body and spirit. Keep positive thoughts and focus on how you can make yourself better and prevent this from happening again. This is a time of focusing on mental clarity, health and temperance.
Eat! Yes, we need to eat while we are sick, but this is not the time to poison ourselves with cakes, cookies, chips, etc. We've all done it, I'm certainly guilty of getting sick and having a well pronounced pity party with all the trimmings. However, I noticed when I did that, it took much longer for me to get well. Why? Because, I wasn't putting positive life force back into my body to help move the toxins out. Unfortunately, binging on junk food only put more toxins into my body. So if you eat, try to load up on Vitamin C foods and green leafy vegetables. Make a big pot of veggie soup and eat that until your hearts content. You'll find you'll get fuller faster, and you'll get better faster too! And try to stay away from dairy...understand that if you have a cold and/or flu, you're trying to get the mucus out of your body, so don't put more in.
Fighting that fever? This is a big no-no! If you have a fever, don't fight against that fever by making yourself sweat. This is where common sense comes into play...uum you have a fever, so you're going to sweat anyway...just allow that to happen on its own! This may sound crazy to many of you, but embrace the fever. It's much wiser to work WITH a fever and NOT against it. To work against a fever is unwise and against the body's intelligence. One thing to always remember is that you have a fever because your body is now defending itself against whatever is ailing you. Think about it: when you exercise you sweat, right? And we're told that sweating releases toxins from our bodies, right? Well, a fever does the same thing, except on auto pilot. Having a fever simply means your body is releasing toxins. So embrace it. This isn't a bad thing, unless you agitate it by fighting it. There are only two things that can help cure a fever, thats rest and liquids. Drink plenty of liquids (while staying away from caffeine, it will provide a temporary high only to have you come down from it weak, tired and dehydrated). Don't forget water is a liquid. Its great to get your antioxidants through tea's and juices; but, we must not forget to drink plenty of water during this time.
Last but certainly not least...Don't exercise! I mentioned earlier to listen to your body. Well...while you're sick your body is shutting down. Allow it to do that. Let your body rejuvenate itself and go through the motions. You ever go to the doctor for a cold or the flu and they send you home with no medicine, telling you to get some vitamin c and rest? That's probably the only time you'll go to the hospital and the pharmaceutical companies don't make a killing. Even the doctors know there's nothing they can do for you. You have to allow your body to go through the motions and not force and try to strategically plan a get well scheme. Now if you just have the sniffles or light sinus issues and you can function, this is different. Exercising may clear up some of that light weight congestion and move the toxins out before it turns into something worse. But, if you have a cold and/or flu like symptoms and are weak, tired and feverish. Please, by all means, stay in bed. You have to take care of you. Sometimes, getting proper rest is just what your body needs.
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